To Love And Be Loved

Love speaks in so many ways.
From Above is one way Love speaks to me.
Through my wife Love also speaks to me.
Through my trials and pains Love also speaks to me.

To love and be loved.

People desire to have someone to love and to know that someone loves them.

This feeling that suggests we are not alone in this world is very important for people.

People desire to feel love, to hear about it, to hear it be said to them, and to have the courage and confirmation to say it to others.

Love is sometimes understood only as a feeling, but is love only a feeling or an emotion?

The earliest recognitions of love can often times be a sense, a feeling, an emotion.

There is a blend, an overlap, where sexual attraction meets love.

It is how mankind is wired.

Yet what was considered love can turn out to have simply been lust.

Because of the overlap in the human, love and lust are often times easily confused... and can cause confusion.

Yet love's emotion is only a spark, the drawing mechanism that leads to greater depths of love and moves beyond lust or things physical.

When the body is old and ceases to function as in its youth, the love that was built from that spark is what is left.

If there was no foundation built on love, then feelings are sure to direct words and actions instead of love's foundation.

This shows that love is so much more than a feeling, or a sexual attraction.

Unfortunately for some people, love doesn't go beyond what their feelings dictate.

We see this when people say they fell out of love with someone... or are unable to forgive.

Their 'feelings' have changed, or more clearly - their feelings have been injured in some way.

Instead of those feelings being repaired in order to arrive back at the feeling of love, thoughts are directed and decisions made according to the feelings of hurt.

Imagine if bones, once broken, never healed.

Imagine if skin, once cut, never healed.

The feelings of love may not be as simple and physical as bones or skin, but the pain of being hurt by a loved one (one you love or one that you believe loves you) may be similar to bones breaking or skin cutting.

Notice, however, that bones do heal.

Recently I was reading how when a bone breaks, blood flows to the area and forms clots that cause inflammation.

This healing process brings continued pain and is time-consuming regarding how long it takes for full recovery.

This is the natural healing process.

The healing process is uncomfortable and doesn't allow for much mobility, but instead brings physical restrictions.

Science explains that bones initially heal and fuse back together in a stronger bond at the fracture, and in time that strength returns to even throughout the rest of the bone.

In other words, the place of brokenness gets strong for a time, and then returns to normal and reflects the rest of the bone's strength.

When fully healed, what is left is physical evidence of the break, where the fracture occurred, the place the bone was broken as seen in x-rays.

The grievousness of the bone break eventually goes away.

Even in a compound fracture that protrudes the skin, after all is healed, only the memory of devastation is left.

The ugliness of the breakage is not continually present, although some things may linger.

Love makes adjustments so life may continue.

Looking at how cut skin heals, there is also residual evidence.

Although skin eventually heals, you can always see where the injury happened.

Notice how, as with the bones, the grievousness of the skin's blood-shedding and pain and ugliness is only a memory, while the healing result is not as ugly as the initial injury.

Any healing process can be painful, time-consuming, and restricting.

But things are not always as ugly as when they initially happened.

Notice our feelings go through a similar process regarding our love for others and their love for us.

But do we pursue healing when it comes to love as we do with bones and skin?

Do we allow the healing process to go forward, or do we hinder it?

Have you noticed how quickly and easily someone who is hurt finds another person to love? (but really to hurt)

Hopefully this is only an observation in media or in certain parts of the world but not with you personally, yet if you know this and have grown to know better, perhaps you fully understand.

Often times when feelings are hurt, the desire to love and be loved overcomes the healing process... and instead of actual healing, an injury is further opened, a wound is made worse, and love is attacked.

Someone who has suffered by or through promiscuity, and has overcome, knows this better than those who fall into this trap and escapism - the attempt at quick-healing.

This is why some people, in doubt and pessimism, say that love doesn't exist.

They speak from a place of hurt and lack of healing.

Although there is an overlap between love and sexual attraction (how God wired man and woman to interact at their most base), this very minor overlap is, unfortunately, often times the entire foundation of some people's lives.

We see this readily in people whose lives are made famous, and for some of us we see clearly what a disaster such a lifestyle is, while others are somehow 'sold' on the notion that this is a truer lifestyle than the one following the natural cadence of life.

Life's natural cadence is reflected in this article's analogies of bone and skin healing when it comes to healing feelings through love's prism.

Notice how in the following verse, there is an insight into a love that surpasses that physical overlap between a man and woman I mentioned.

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. 

- 1 Samuel 1: 26

The love Jonathan had for David was one that broke typical tribal bonds between a father (Saul) and son (Jonathan).

Jonathan's love for David was based not so much on fealty to his own house (house of Saul), or the throne, because Jonathan was to lose the kingdom inheritance now granted to David.

Jonathan's love for David was stemming from fealty to God's Word and acknowledging God's anointed king - David.

That love is further explained in this following verse in a deeper manner:

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

- John 15: 13

Jonathan was willing to give up his very self for the sake of what God had determined to bring forth in David... and he did.

Yeshua, the Christ, repeated this love when He laid His life down for His disciples.

In this next verse, notice how love is actually something spiritual that beckons a connection with God through obedience to His Word and His will.

In fact, this is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome. 

- 1 John 5: 3

Love is spiritual.

Love is supernatural.

God is Love.

Our feelings while on earth are not always a clear representation of love, nor of what Love desires from us, nor what we are called to do, say, and be.

How did God express His love for you?

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

- Romans 5: 8